My sweet friend Mindy Hopman took these pictures for our Before & After Project. Easter sunrise demonstrates how God is always at work in the Process. Thank you Mindy! 🙂
Watching a sunrise is like seeing God at work in our own hearts. We start out in the dark. As time moves on and we come to know the Lord better, His Light shines brighter in our lives. We grow in righteousness. We see increase in our faith and in our love for Him and others. We become a display of His splendor, not our own (Isaiah 61:3).
God gives us Befores & Afters
to give us hope during dark times and remind us
He is always at work to accomplish His purpose in and through us.
When YOU see a Before in your own life, don’t grieve over not having the After yet. Do you have a child who isn’t learning what you are trying so hard to teach? Do you have an unreconciled relationship that is breaking your heart? Are you stuck in your job and can’t see a way out? Is your health failing? God is still at work, even during the times that we can’t see it. Some answers to prayer we won’t see this side of Glory.
Don’t covet the After and miss what God is while you are waiting. God’s timing is perfect and when you don’t see results in your life, it is not on account of any weakness on His part. He hasn’t forgotten you. He isn’t wondering what on earth to do about you.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through him we have also obtained access by faith
into this grace in which we stand,
and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5
Today I am linking up at these awesome linky parties:
When there are pauses in our life, it doesn’t mean a pause in His presence or purpose in our lives. He is always working, never stops. In fact He works more intensely. We need to rest in His hands and trust we’ll come through stronger and closer to His heart.
Very true! Thank you for stopping by 🙂
Don’t covet the after and miss the waiting! Love, love! Thank you for your Before/After series, Britta! You are a blessing!
Hugs to you dear Mindy!
I love the contrast of light and dark as well as before and after. So much does happen in the in-between. This has actually been on my mind lately, so it’s neat to come here and have God affirm what he’s teaching me. xoxo
I would love to talk to you about this some time if you are interested. I see a project in there. There is so much to say. 🙂 I have been teaching a Bible study that I wrote and this has come up several times!
I’d love to talk more about it. Shoot me an email at kristinhilltaylor (at) gmail (dot) com. xoxo